Sunday, December 16, 2018

The woes of Public Transport in New York City

A rally
was held to introduce congestion pricing in New York City during rush hour to
solve the issues of subway funding. I have been watching this subway funding
crisis since for so many years but still there has been no headway or any
solution to this ongoing crisis. The politicians keep on coming up with various
solutions but nothing pans out and becomes the law and thus people are
subjected to fares and tolls increase every two years and still it is not enough
to fund the subways. I don’t know where all the money goes as people and the
subway authority keeps on demanding more funding but there is not enough to go
around. The city blames the state but the state does not want to pay or does
not have the money to pay for all the funding.And the biggest of them all is the salary and compensation being paid to
the employees.

Nobody
has dared to question the salaries of the employees like if they are the holy
cow that can’t be touched without igniting a union fight. The Politicians don’t
want a fight with the unions and the unions keep on harping about preserving middle
class jobs (which are buzz word for keeping the unions intact). Bold steps to
address the issues of funding for the subways have to be taken but I don’t see
it happening any times soon. And congestion pricing would not do alone and some
other better solutions which address the subways without generating revenue
from other sources will need to be taken.